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Bryn  Mawr  Notes 
AND  Monographs 

IV 
A    CITIZEN   OF 
THE  TWILIGHT 


BRYN  MAWR  NOTES 

AND    MONOGRAPHS 

IV 


A  CITIZEN  OF  THE  TWILIGHT 


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J   I         »         > 


A  CITIZEN  OF  THE  TWILIGHT 

JOSE  ASUNCION  SILVA 


By 
GEORGIANA  GODDARD  KING,  M.A. 

Professor  of  the  History  of  Art  in  Bryn  Mawr  College 
Member  of  the  Hispanic  Society  of  America 


BRYN   MAWR  COLLEGE 
Bryn  Mawr,  Pennsylvania 

LONGMANS.   GREEN  AND   CO. 
Xew  York,  Calcutta,  Bombay,  and  Madras 


1921 


Copyright,  1921,  by 
BRYN    MAWR  COLLEGE 


JOSfi    A.     vSILVA 


I 


A    CITIZEN    OF    THE    TWILIGHT 

''Bogota  is  a  city  of  the  Andes,  8000  feet 
above  the  sea.     There  the  atmosphere  is 
cold  and  dry.     The  air  is  dehcate:  the  sky 
is  of  disconcerting  purity  and  transparency. 
Forty  or  fifty  miles  away  the  profile  of  the 
mountains  stands  out  brilliant  and  ghtter- 
ing,  as  in  ombres  chinois.     Under  this  Hght, 
colour  becomes  provisional:   soft  tones  be- 
come sharp,  keen  tones  become  half-tones. 
Neither   black  nor   white   can   resist   the 
light;  the  black  takes  a  greenish  tinge  im- 
mediately, the  white  is  spoiled  by  shades  of 
grey.     In  this  dry  and  rarefied  air,"  con- 
tinued Silva,   "always  at  the  same  tem- 
perature, the  nerves  are  in  constant  ten- 
sion.'*/ Here  is  neither  summer  nor  winter, 
but  always  chill  and  sun,  or  drizzling  mist 
and  dragging  skirts  of  cloud:  there  are  no 
long  nights  of  winter,  no  long  summer  days, 
for  night  and  day  are  alike  the  year  around; 
and  always  it  is  either  day  or  night,  for 
there  is  no  twilight  in  the  courts  of  the  sun. 
To  the  rest  of  the  world  it  would  seem  life 


No  twilight 


n. 


a  /  /V 


B  R  Y  N     M  A  W  R     NOTES 


in  the 
courts  of 
the  sun 


IV 


'  \     l     )       1      '  »  I-* !— »4-^- 


Tension 


Culture 


IV 


A     CITIZEN     OF 


there  must  be  in  itself  abnormal,  exacting, 
troubled.  For  the  poet  who  gave  this  ac- 
count of  his  own  land,  the  tension  of  the 
nerves  was  torture,  and  in  the  end  they 
snapped. 

Silva  was  a  citizen  of  the  twiHght. 
There  are  many  sorts  of  pessimism,  and 
not  all  pessimists  have  haunted  the  City  of 
Dreadful  Night.  This  younger  brother  of 
Leopardi  and  James  Thomson  is  deter- 
mined by  his  temperament  toward  a  sort 
of  twilight  land,  a  land  of  shadows  and 
voices,  vague  forms  that  pass,  shades  that 
elude  the  grasp,  fluttering  moths  and 
fleeting  echoes,  where  the  dark  is  but  dim- 
ness, the  nights  are  full  of  murmurings, 
perfumes  and  music  of  wings. 

Jose  Asuncion  Silva  was  born  on  the 
27th  of  October,  in  1865;  and  at  the  age 
of  thirty- 'he  shot  himself:  on  May  24th, 
1896.  His  father,  D.  Ricardo  Silva,  was  a 
cultivated  man,  whose  friends  were  poets 
and  savants,  journalists,  orators,  or  else 
connoisseurs  of  literature.  Jorge  Isaacs 
was  a  familiar  of  the  house.  The  literary 
atmosphere  of  Bogota,  as  recalled  by  those 


BRYN     MAWR     NOTES 


THE     TWILIGHT 


who  breathed  it,  in  the  last  quarter  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  suggests  that  of  Edin- 
burgh in  the  first.  Don  Ricardo  himself 
wrote  little  essays  of  which  his  club  thought 
well.  He  was  a  man  of  taste,  and  appar- 
ently of  heart:  his  son  was  to  mourn  him. 
Brought  up  in  the  best  society  of  Bogota, 
educated  like  other  gentlemen's  sons,  now 
at  one  school  and  now  at  another,  and  at 
last  quitting  school  definitively  because  of 
his  interest  in  books,  Jose  w^ent  to  France 
on  a  journey  with  his  father  which  had 
business  as  its  excuse  but  resulted  in  a 
swifter  and  richer  maturing  of  his  genius 
than  if  he  had  been  sent  there  to  study. 
To  Paris  in  those  days  all  South  America, 
like  Italy,  like  England,  looked  for  ideals  of 
art,  for  idols  in  letters,  for  the  wind  of  in- 
spiration, whereby  the  Muse  became  a 
P3rthoness.  He  made  the  acquaintance 
and  felt  the^^power  of  Jean  Richepin,  but 
the  strongest  influence  upon  his  style  was 
less  any  one  man's  than,  rather,  that  of  a 
school,  the  Symholiste.  He  came  home  not 
so  much  changed  as  formed. 

He  will  have  been  what  old  women  call 


AND     MONOGRAPHS 


and  travel 


IV 


A  gentle 
child 


A     CITIZEN     OF 


A  good  son 
and  brother 


a  nursery  child;  not  unkind  to  tlie  dolls, 
or  alien  to  his  little  sister's  pleasure  at 
bringing  in  a  cocoon  and  laying  it  up  to 
wait  for  the  butterfly;  content  with  the 
fairy-tale  and  the  singing-game,  satisfied 
with  books,  hushed  and  exalted  by  the  First 
Commuaiaji»r  Certain  poems  are  steeped 
in  the  atmo^^ere  of  a  sheltered  life  at 
home,  the  warm  sweetness  and  safety  of 
the  nursery,  the  lamp-light,  the  drawn  cur- 
tain, and  the  far-off  sounds  from  the 
street. » 

He  was  about  twenty-three  when  Don 
Ricardo  died,  leaving  his  affairs  in  a  sad 
state,  and  Jose  as  eldest  son  took  up  the 
business  in  the  hope  of  paying  off  the 
debts.  His  mother's  beauty  and  brilliancy 
and  worldly  gifts,  the  rare  loveliness  and 
charm  of  his  sister  Elvira,  the  Httle  ones, 
still  in  the  nursery,  for  the  three  brothers 
in  between  had  died  in  infancy — all  these 
were  but  so  many  irresistible  demands  upon 
him,  constituted  rights  for  so  many  help- 
less people.  Thenceforth  he  looked  on  his 
literary  preoccupations  as  a  sort  of  criminal 
vice,  to  be  hidden  from  all  but  his  friends. 


IV 


BRYN     MAWR     NOTES 


THE     TWILIGHT 


In  this  episode  of  the  business  and  its 
matter  of  course,  appears  a  trait  entirely 
American,  setting  him  off  from  others  of 
his  temperament  whose  tragical  lives  were 
determined     by     their     troubled     spirits, 
Leopardi  and  James  Thomson.     Only  in 
our  hemisphere  may  a  man  combine  the 
functions  of  a  shopkeeper  and  a  gentleman. 
Leopardi  was  a  man  of  rank,  and  though 
he  was  much  put  to  it  at  times  for  means 
of  subsistence,  he  could  earn  none  except 
by  teaching  or  writing;  Thomson  was  bom 
in  the  lower  middle  class  and  could  not  be 
admitted  to  the  conversation  or  personal 
consideration  of  what  are  technically  called 
gentlemen;     but    Silva.    like    his    father, 
moved  among  the  best  people,  in  a  capital, 
while  dealing  in  dry  goods  and  notions. 
"Out  of  the  necessities  of  his  trade  he  drew 
material  for  romance,  and  the  list  of  his 
importations  reads  like  what  came  to  Solo- 
mon in  the  ships  of  Hiram  king  of  Tyre: 
silks    from    Jirganor,    jars    from    China, 
Murano  glass,  Atkinson's  perfumes,   and 
Lalique  jew^ellery. 

His    poems    meanwhile    were    handed 


A  shop- 
keeper 


AND     MONOGRAPHS 


IV 


A  poet 


Personal 
charm 


IV 


A    CITIZEN     OF 


about  in  manuscript,  copied,  recopied,  and 
miscopied;  learned  by  heart,  recited,  and 
repeated,  as  fast  as  written,  in  the  literary 
clubs  of  Bogota.  Some  came  out  in  news- 
papers and  provincial  Illustrated  Weeklies, 
some  were  never  published  and  were  re- 
constructed after  his  death  from  scraps  of 
paper  and  half-forgotten  recollections  in 
the  memory  of  his  intimates. 

Like  Tennyson,  Silva  himself  could  re- 
member and  recite  what  he  had  composed: 
his  voice  was  fine  with  rare  beauty  of 
timbre,  his  cadences  were  rich  and  well 
adapted,  the  magic  of  his  poetry  was  ex- 
traordinary. He  had,  moreover,  great 
personal  charm,  with  the  especial  friendly 
and  gentle  grace  which  is  confined  usually 
to  those  who  have  been  delicate  as  chil- 
dren, or  for  some  reason  have  needed  more 
care  and  caressing  than  most — the  indis- 
position to  hurt  anything  alive.  Personal 
beauty  as  marked  as  Byron's  but  graver, 
appears  in  his  portrait  and  in  reminiscence 
of  him.  The  great  pale  brow,  the  great 
chestnut  beard,  the  great  luminous  eyes, 
are  all  romantic  and  maladif.     He  was  ex- 


BRYN     MAWR    NOTES 


THE     TWILIGHT 


pressly  fashioned,  as  his  friend  Sanin  Cano 
was  to  say,  for  an  exquisite  instrument  of 
suffering.  The  sister  nearest  to  his  own 
age  seems  to  have  suppHed  in  these  years 
what  he  most  craved,  the  complete  under- 
standing, the  intimacy,  in  a  certain  sense 
the  protection,  rarely  to  be  found  except 
within  the  bounds  of  kindred.  Some  other 
experience  he  had  at  this  time  of  what  the 
name  of  love  also  includes:  "a  sordid  busi- 
ness in  which  he  became,  against  his  will, 
the  central  figure. "  but  which  left  him  im- 
spoiled. 

The  handful  of  poems  that  are  called 
GotasAmargas,  Bitter  Drops,  which  were 
the  outcome  chiefly  of  the  experience,  he 
would  never  consent  to  print,  but  indeed 
they  contain  nothing  that  he  needed  to 
regret,  except  youth.  Grossness  is  not 
there,  coarseness  is  rare,  and,  like  a  boy's 
smoking,  studied  rather  than  instinctive. 
Throughout  his  short  time  of  working,  the 
verses  upon  sentimental  themes  are  aloof, 
ironic,  and  indifferent.  It  would  almost 
appear  that  the  only  love  he  knows  in  a 
strength  which  can  be  called  passion,  is 


The  hearth 


AND     MONOGRAPHS 


IV 


8 


Fin  de  siicle 


IV 


A     CITIZEN     OF 


that  of  kindred:  mother  and  daughter, 
brother  and  sister,  betrothed  or  wedded 
lovers.  The  sanctity  of  the  hearth  is  over 
all.  Even  in  the  Gotas  A  mar  gas  the  sa- 
tirical impulse  very  soon  yields  to  the 
mere  malady  of  living;  his  Lazarus,  who 
when  the  Saviour  raised  him  had  wept  for 
joy,  four  months  later  was  found  in  the 
place  of  tombs,  weeping  alone  and  envying 
the  dead. 

The  malady  of  the  century's  end  was  his. 
"When  you  come  at  your  last  hour,  to 
your  last  lodging,"  so  he  concludes  a  long- 
ish  piece,  finely  chiselled,  called  Philos- 
ophies, "you  will  feel  the  killing  anguish 
of  having  done  nothing."  '  'It  would  be  a 
mistake,  however,  to  diagnose  this  disease 
as  the  same  with  Leopardi's;  it  is  not  the 
futility  of  accomplishment  which  besets 
him,  but  the  impossibility.  As  his  doctor 
pronounces  in  El  Mai  de  Siglo,  *'What  ails 
you  is  hunger" — the  famished  need  for  all 
that  is  out  of  reach  and  then,  furthermore, 
for  all  that  the  constitution  of  this  par- 
ticular world  denies.  "Sacrifice  yourself 
to    art,    combine,    refine,    carve,    toil    on. 


BRYN     MAWR     NOTES 


THE     TWILIGHT 


strive,  and  into  the  labour  that  is  kiUing 
you — canvas,  bronze  or  poem — put  your 
essence,  your  nerves,  your  whole  soul. 
Terrible  vain  emprize!  The  day  after  to- 
morrow your  work  will  be  out  of  fashion." 
The  trouble  here  lies  not  in  the  nature  of 
things  but  in  the  perversity  of  life. 

What  ailed  him  was  hunger.  Like  other 
young  men  of  parts,  ardent  and  ambitious, 
he  was  dazzled  and  dizzied  by  the  un- 
guessed  possibilities  of  the  universe.  The 
immense  spectacle  of  human  knowledge,  of 
modern  science,  of  speculative  thought, 
burst  upon  him;  and  for  him  as  for  how 
many,  Herbert  Spencer's  First  Principles 
was  like  the  draught  of  Lucretius.  As  they 
overpassed  the  flaming  ramparts  of  the 
world,  as  they  watched  the  atoms  drop- 
ping through  the  void  and  saw  the  stars 
whirling  through  infinitude,  as  they  felt  the 
enormous  cosmical  process  knit  up  into 
worlds  and  dissolve  again  through  recur- 
rent eternities,  the  burning  concepts 
scorched  the  brain,  the  swelling  appre- 
hensions with  which  it  ached  "made  havoc 
among    those    tender    cells."       Like    his 


The  cosmic 
spectacle 


AND     MONOGRAPHS 


IV 


10 


Sudden 
death 


IV 


A    CITIZEN     OF 


friends,  who,  what  with  books  and  what 
with  talk,  had  come  to  this  new  Ught,  had 
shared  with  him  this  all  but  intolerable 
initiation,  he  had  to  unlearn  old  notions 
and  acquire  new  ones.  Others  took  it 
lightlier.  In  their  study,  as  one  of  them 
says,  they  gained,  in  default  of  other 
knightly  discipline,  a  diversion  and  a  noble 
aim.  He  plunged  into  Herbert  Spencer 
and  foimd,  or  fancied,  that  he  must  learn 
mechanics,  natural  history,  chemistry, 
ethnography  and  the  exact  sciences.  What 
for  his  companions  was  an  orgy  of  acquisi- 
tion, was  tortiire  for  him;  Business  pressed 
him,  his  family  claimed  him,  and  society, 
and  life. 

Misfortune  was  to  come  again:  suddenly, 
in  a  January  night,  his  sister  died  of  a 
malady  of  the  heart.  When  she  was 
dressed  for  the  grave,  he  covered  her  body 
with  lilies  and  roses,  drenching  it  with  per- 
fume, and  turned  every  one  else  out  of  the 
room  except  a  single  friend.  As  he  stayed 
there  long  in  silence,  in  the  very  profound 
of  grief  he  found  his  anodyne. 

Then  he  was  for  a  time  Secretary  of 


BRYN     MAWR    NOTES 


<^, 


THE    TWILIGHT 


11 


Legation  at  Caracas.  Returning  thence 
he  was  wrecked  in  the  Amerique,  off  the 
coast,  and  lost  a  set  of  sonnets  that  he  was 
used  to  speak  of  as  my  jewels.  For  nearly 
ten  years,  now,  he  had  borne  the  distress 
that  mere  living  involved,  the  pressure  of 
cruel  care,  and  a  more  cruel  spiritual  dry- 
ness.    He  wrote  once  to  a  lady: 

''Counselled  in  these  hours  of  spiritual 
aridity  by  my  lay  confessor,  an  old  psy- 
chologist, who  keeps  in  his  cell  for  sole 
ornament  a  copy  of  Albert  Diirer's  Melan- 
cholia, and  who  knows  to  the  bottom  the 
subtle  secrets  of  the  director  of  souls,  I 
have  attained  to  great  consolations,  and 
re-established  inward  peace  by  reading 
and  meditating  much  those  verses,  the 
sweetest  of  the  Imitation: 

Excedunt  enim  spirituales  consola- 
tiones  omnis  mundi  delicias,  et  carnis 
voluptates. 

Nam  omnes  deliciae  mundanae  aut 
vanae  sunt  aut  turpes^ 

The  temper  of  the  Preacher  is  not  the 
temper  of  thirty  years.     Immediate  anx- 


Spiritual 
dryness 


AND     MONOGRAPHS 


IV 


12 


The  cares 
of  this 
world 


A     CITIZEN     OF 


ieties  beset  him.  In  1885  the  six  months 
of  civil  war,  the  isolation  of  the  capital  and 
the  dependence  on  paper  money  had 
brought  about  a  financial  crisis  that  ruined 
his  father;  another  recurred  in  1894. 
From  one  day  to  the  next  he  could  not  be 
sure  of  a  friend  to  whom  he  might  turn. 
A  series  of  short  stories,  written  before  this, 
had  been  lost  in  the  Amerique,  irretriev- 
ably as  it  proved.  He  had  not  the  oppor- 
tunity or  the  long  constancy  of  purpose 
necessary  to  replace  these:  he  used,  how- 
ever, some  of  the  material  in  the  draught 
of  a  novel,  never  to  be  finished,  called  De 
Sobremesa.  The  fragment  on  madness  and 
suicide  in  which  some  have  thought  to 
foresee  his  ending,  was  not  in  the  least 
autobiographical;  it  belongs  to  this  T able- 
Talk,  and  was  evoked  by  the  news  of 
Maupassant's  insanity. 

He  spoke  often,  indeed,  of  death,  and  of 
self-destruction,  quoting  Maurice  Barres' 
saying,  "They  kill  themselves  for  lack  of 
imagination."  He  said,  himself:  "A  man 
dies  of  suicide  as  of  typhus,  both  are  infec- 
tious."    For  insanity  was  not  rare  in  the 


IV 


BRYN     MAWR     NOTES 


D//unfo<> 


THE     TWILIGHT 


thin  air  and  cold  of  Bogota,  and  to  say  that 
a  neighbour  was  mad,  a  famiUar  recourse  of 
slanderous  and  social  malice. 

The  place  seems,  indeed,  in  certain  as- 
pects, melancholy  enough,  grey,  chill,  and 
foggy  as  Bruges,  while,  as  in  the  Dia  de 
Dafuntos,  the  mist  falls  drop  by  drop,  en- 
wrapping the  dark  city,  and  the  grieving 
bells  speak  to  the  Hving  of  the  dead.  The 
mood  is  found  concentrated  in  Triste,  of 
which  the  substance  is  somewhat  as  follows : 

When  fate,  whenever  it  likes,  mingles 
with  our  lives  the  pains,  afore-time  un- 
gues sed,  of  absence  and  death. 

And,  wrapped  in  mystery,  with  startling 
speed  depart,  friends  to  the  burial  ground, 
illusions  into  the  dark. 

Tenderness'  poignant  voice,  that  throbs  as 
through  the  dark  of  night  a  distant  bell, 

Brings  up  lost  memories  that  waken  occult 
sounds  amid  the  ruin  of  years: 

And  with  short  swallow-flights,  through  the 
dark,  come  dreams  of  pain  and  cold, 

Till  some  far-of,  consoling  thought  com- 
mences with  our  distress  the  great  con- 
fused dialogue  of  the  tombs  and  the  skies. 


AND     MONOGRAPHS 


13 


Triste 


IV 


14 


A  dialogue 
of  the  tomb 
and  the 
sky 


An  inno- 
vator 


IV 


A    CITIZEN     OF 


The  dialogue  was  ringing  in  his  ears. 
Yet  it  would  have  taken  no  more  than  a 
little  good  luck,  a  little  sun,  to  avert  the 
end.  In  the  spring  of  1896  he  was  sick 
with  pain  and  anon  it  was  mortal;  he  was 
tossing  on  what  the  Prayer-Book  calls  the 
waves  of  this  troublesome  world,  and  sud- 
denly the  deep  waters  went  over  his  soul. 
He  said  of  himself:  "An  intellectual  cul- 
ture, undertaken  without  method  and  with 
insane  pretensions  to  universality,  an  in- 
tellectual culture  which  has  ended  in  the 
lack  of  all  faith,  in  the  scorn  of  every  hu- 
man limitation,  in  an  ardent  curiosity  of 
evil,  in  desire  to  try  all  possible  experience 
of  life — all  this  has  completed  the  work  of 
the  other  influences"  and  he  has  become  a 
mere  mechanism  of  pain. 

Little  as  he  left,  Silva  is  still,  perhaps, 
the  most  entirely  poet  of  any  Hispano- 
American.  The  verse  of  Ruben  Dario,  be- 
side his,  is  like  a  Japanese  print  beside  a 
mediaeval  illumination,  it  seems  flimsy, 
facile  and  colourless.  The  progress, 
throughout  those  few  poor  years  which  are 
allowed  him,  in  perfection  even,  is  less  than 


BRYN     MAWR     NOTES 


THE     TWILIGHT 


15 


in  intellectual  content,  and  it  breaks  off 
at  the  mere  first-fruits.  He  begins  with 
the  Lied,  masters  the  A  lexandrine,  and  ends 
in  sustained  and  powerful  vers  lihre. 
In  poetry  he  was  an  innovator,  not  solely  in 
the  choice  of  themes,  the  intimacy  and 
charm  of  interiors,  the  nursery  lore  so 
deHcately  touched,  in  the  preoccupation 
with  death,  in  the  sense  for  the  voice  of 
things;  nor  yet  was  his  pecuhar  excellence 
chiefly  in  his  feeUng,  exquisite  and  in- 
stinctive, for  half-tones  and  half-Hghts. 
In  his  verse  he  was  even  more  modem, 
enlarging  and  enriching  the  rigid  classical 
possibilities  and  the  vague  romantic  con- 
ventionalities of  the  forms  which  he  in- 
herited. 

He  was  not,  indeed,  like  our  best  poets 
at  this  moment,  an  imagist  quite,  but  he 
was  a  symbolist:  and  the  texture  and 
cadence  of  his  poetry  as  the  sound  con- 
veys it  or  the  inward  ear  apprehends  it, 
has  the  same  value  as  the  names  of  things, 
and  more  value  than  the  descriptive  epi- 
thet. For  that  reason  every  translation  is 
foredoomed  to  displease  the  translator  first 


in  themes 


feeling 


AND     MONOGRAPHS 


and  verse 


Symbolist 


IV 


16 


Timbre 

and 

overtones 


The 

Old  Things 


IV 


A     CITIZEN     OF 


of  all.  But  even  without  the  sonorous  and 
magical  harmonies,  so  much  remains,  by 
virtue  precisely  of  his  symbolic  use  of 
language,  and  power  to  evoke  mysterious 
and  distant  reverberations  in  the  soul,  in 
the  employment  of  words  like  old  and 
shadow,  death  and  dreams,  the  sounding  of 
bells,  the  echoing  of  voices.  With  the 
majestic  line 

iO  voces  silenciosii^  de  los  muertos! 

he  opens  a  translation,  that  rather  betters 
the  original,  of  Tennyson's  When  the 
Dumb  Hour  Clothed  in  Black.  Each  poem 
has  a  formal  and  living  beauty  of  its  own, 
whether  spoken  or  seen,  like  that  one 
which  he  copied  out  on  parchment  with  illu- 
minations (as  Peter  Cristus  once  copied 
a  leaf  of  miniature  from  Bruges  into  the 
background  of  a  portrait),  for  one  who 
though  no  poet  was  a  lover  of  all  beauty 
and  a  chosen  friend  of  poets. 

Vjejeces,  that  transcript  was  called,  The 
Ola  Things:  the  title  of  the  poem  is  the 
very  same  that,  in  the  middle  nineties,  Mr. 
James  tried  for  a  novel,  and  gave  up  re- 


BRYN     MAWR     NOTES 


^  \eJ£C£ 


J 


THE     TWILIGHT 


luctantly.  The  dimmed  lights,  the  hushed 
fragrances,  the  faded  tones,  the  dust  on 
musical  instruments,  evoke  the  very  strik- 
ing of  that  luxurious  and  long-past  hour. 
Taller  Moderno  might  be  the  identical 
studio,  with  its  Tiepolo  in  the  distant  ceil- 
ing, of  Mr.  James's  contemporaneous  tale 
of  Collaboration.  The  rusty  gold,  the  long 
dim  evenings,  and  dusky  hours  on  winter 
afternoons,  were  grateful  to  the  dying  cen- 
tury, were  soothing  to  sick  nerves.  Mid- 
night Dreams,  the  English  phrase,  affords 
the  title  for  another  very  characteristic 
piece,  of  which  it  is  hard  to  remember,  in 
the  completeness  of  the  picture,  the  slow 
movement,  the  charged  atmosphere,  that  it 
contains  but  two  more  lines  than  a  sonnet. 

Tonight,  being  half  asleep  and  solitary, 
My  dreams  of  other  times  appeared  to  me; 
The  dreams  of  hopes,  glories  and  raptures 

fine, 
And  happinesses  that  were  never  mine. 
So  they  drew  near  in  slow  procession 
Peopling  the  corners  of  the  dark  room  soon; 
There  was  grave  silence  then  in  all  the  place. 
And  the  clock  stayed  its  pendulum  a  space. 


17 


AND     M  ONOGRAPHS 


Contem- 
porary, 
American, 
akin  in 
feeling 


IV 


18 


Overtones 


IV 


A     CITIZEN     OF 


The  sweetness  vague  of  a  forgot  perfume 
Spoke  of  the  past  like  a  ghost  come  V  the 

room, 
Faces  I  saw  the  grave  has  long  since  gotten, 
Voices  I  heardf  where  once  heard  I  have 

forgotten 

The  dreams  drew  near,  and  saw  that  I  was 

sleeping, 
Then    they    withdrew,    absolute    silence 

keeping, 
And,    touching    not    the    pillow's    silken 

braid, 
Dissolved  and  drifted  off  into  the  shade. 

With  a  different  range  of  subjects  and 
images,  Silva  yet  recalls  Verlaine  in  his  in- 
fallible ear  for  overtones,  both  musical 
and  emotional.  His  instrument  is  the 
viole  d'amore,  which  is  strung  with  a  second 
set  of  silver  strings  beneath,  never  struck, 
that  yet  sound  to  the  voice  of  things.  It 
will  recall  to  English-speaking  readers  the 
English  poetry  of  his  contemporaries, 
the  soft-dropping  cadences  of  Arthur 
Symons,  the  metrical  strangeness  and 
beauty  of  Lionel  Johnson,  the  luxurious 
polyphony  of  Ernest  Dowson. 


BRYN     MAWR    NOTES 


THE     TWILIGHT 


19 


The  influence  of  Heine,  which  he  felt 
only  on  the  lyrical  and  ironic  side,  was  both 
superficial  and  transient,  but  it  possibly 
affected  the  quatrains  and  the  sentiment 
of  some  early  pieces,  like  Laughter  and 
Tears. 

Together  we  laughed  one  day, 
Aye,  and  we  laughed  so  long 
That  all  the  laughter  was  jey 
And  turned  to  weeping  strong. 

Together  at  eventide 

We  wept,  we  wept  so  long 

That  we  kept,  when  tears  were  dried, 

A  mysterious  song. 

Deep  sighs  rise  from  the  feast 
Between  hot  cup  and  cup. 
And  in  salt  water  of  seas 
Pale  pearls  grow  up. 

On  the  next  page,  however,  the  measure 
begins  to  complicate  and  turn  upon  itself, 
with  the  syncopated  rhythms  of  the  short 
lines,  in  the  piece  called  Fixed  Stars,  and 
the  ritardando  at  the  end  of  each  verse: 


Heine 


AND     MONOGRAPHS 


IV 


20 


Byron 


IV 


A    CITIZEN     OF 


When  I  have  done 

With  life,  body  and  soul, 
And  sleep  in  the  grave 

The  longest  night  of  the  whole, 

Remembering  of  things 

The  endless  bewildering  maze. 

My  eyes  shall  keep,  like  a  dream. 
The  mild  light  of  your  gaze. 

As  they  rot  and  rot 

Down  in  the  dark  grave's  room, 
They  will  know,  in  deatWs  unknown, 

Your  eyes  that  hang  in  the  gloom. 

The  culmination  of  this  period  is  the 
poem  Resurrections,  which  is  still  preoccu- 
pied with  the  horrors  of  mortaHty.  The 
escape  is  provided,  however,  for  the 
imagination,  and  though  not  precisely 
reminiscent  now,  the  piece  yet  remains 
still  in  the  same  mood  with  Leopardi. 

Like  nature'' s  self 

Cradle  and  grave  eternal  of  all  things, 
The  soul  has  occult  powers, 

Silences,  lights,  musics  and  shadoivings. 


B  R  Y  N     M  A  W  R     NOTES 


THE     TWILIGHT 


21 


Over  an  essence  eterne 

Unstable  passings-by  of  forms  that 
shrink: 
And  unknown  breasts 

Where  life  and  death  utterly  interlink. 

Dank  leaves  are  born 

Where  in  a  grave  have  rotted  body  and 
bone; 
And  adorations  new 

On  altars  from  the  broken  altar-stone. 

With  this  disappears,  except  for  satiric 
use,  the  Lied.  Longer  measures  are 
wanted,  and  more  various,  and  above  all 
more  variable.  The  sonnet  is  treated 
sometimes  like  a  short  ode,  as  though  the 
fourteen  lines  were  accidental,  like  the 
length  of  a  crystal  of  amethyst,  the  shape 
and  the  colour  being  the  main  concern. 
''Verse  is  a  holy  cup,"  he  wrote  once, 
''put  there  a  pure  thought  only."  The 
long  and  short  lines  alternate  within  a 
single  poem  in  the  stanza  structure,  as  in 
the  adorable  Maderos  de  S.  Juan,  which  is 
a  sort  of  gavotte  composed  on  the  theme  of 
a  folk-song  or  nursery  game.     Lastly,  the 


and 
Leopardi 


AND     MONOGRAPHS 


IV 


22 


The  Poem 


IV 


A     CITIZEN     OF 


stanza  disappears,  lines  drag  out  or 
dwindle  at  will,  the  music  changes  to  keep 
step  with  the  dancers  dancing  in  tune.  He 
never,  however,  quite  abandoned  the  long 
splendid  couplet,  which  is  flexible  as  chain 
mail,  that  Chapman  and  Morris  both  could 
wear,  yet  in  which  they  fell  short  always  of 
the  supreme  perfection.  His  finest  ex- 
ample of  the  measure  describes  how  a 
poem  is  made. 

7  thought  once  with  new  art  a  poem  to 

fashion, 
Nervous  and  novel,  daring,  full  of  passion. 
Dallying  awhile  betwixt  grotesque  and  tragic 
I  called  up  all  the  rhythms  by  runes  of 

magic. 
Indocile  rhythms  drew  nearer  in  the  room, 
Flying  and  seeking  each  other  in  the  gloom, 
Sonorous    rhythms,    grave    rhythms    and 

strong, 
Some   like   a   shock   of  arms,   some   like 

birds^  song. 
From  orient  unto  west,  from  south  to  north. 
Of  metres  and  of  forms  the  host  came  forth: 
Under  frail  bridles  champing  bits  of  gold 
Crossed  and  recrossed  the  tercets  manifold; 


BRYN     MAWR     NOTES 


THE     TWILIGHT 


23 


Wide    passage    through    the    throng    then 

opening 
In  gold  and  purple  came  the  Sonnet,  King, 
Until  all  sang   .   .   .   And  in  the  merry  din. 
My  fancy  caught  by  coquetry  therein, 
One  sharp  stanza  stirred  me,  threw  a  spell 
With  the  clear  shrilling  of  a  little  hell. 
This  of  them  all  I  chose:  for  wedding  gear 
Gave  it  rich  rhythms,  silvery  and  crystal 

clear. 
I  told  therein — shunning  the  mean — a  tale 
Tragical,  subtle,  and  fantastical: 
'Twas  the  sad  story,  candid,  undenied, 
Of  a  fair  woman,  well  beloved,  who  died, 
And,  for  the  bitterness  to  taste  in  this, 
I  joined  sweet  syllables  savouring  like  a 

kiss, 
Broidered  phrases  with  gold,  drew  music 

strange 
Like  lutes  and  mandolins  that  interchange; 
Left  in  vague  light  the  distances  profound, 
Filled  with  damp  mist;  shed  melancholy 

around: 
{As  swift  masques  at  a  fete,   to    music 

dancing. 
Cross  and  recross  against  dark  backgrounds 

glancing. 


of  a 

loved 

woman 


AND     MONOGRAPHS 


IV 


24 


A     CITIZEN     OF 


The 
critic 

uncompre- 
hending 


Shrouded  in  words  that  hide  them  like  a 

veil, 
Masked  in  black  velvet  or  in  satin  pale) — 
Set,  behind  all,  and  stirred,  vague  impli- 
cations, 
Mystical  sentiments,  human  temptations. 
I  saw  that  it  was  good  with  artist's  pride, 
Scented  with  heliotrope,  amethyst-dyed, 
Last  showed  my  Poem  to  a  critic  bland: 
He  read  it  thrice,  said,  ''I  don't  under- 
stand ^ 

The  verse  of  Silva  is  reckoned  as  vers 
libre,  but  his  liberty  consists  not  so  much 
in  defiance  of  the  measure  as  in  subtihzing 
within  the  measure,  as  in  the  famous  line 
which  broke  like  a  tidal  wave  over  Castilian 
verse — 

Ritmos  sonoros,  ritmos  potentos,   ritmos 
graves. 

While,  then,  his  place  is  recognized  as 
with  the  vers-librists  of  his  age  in  France, 
it  must  be  recalled  that  though  French 
verse,  with  its  strict  syllabic  structure, 
its  fixed  cesura,  its  alternating  masculine 
and  feminine   rhymes,   was  in   sore  need 


IV 


BRYN     MAWR    NOTES 


THE     TWILIGHT 


25 


of  liberation,  yet  Spanish  verse  had  always 
something  nearer  the  flexibility  of  English, 
and,  with  its  rapid  and  noble  movement, 
its  frequent  elision  and  entire  indifference 
to  hiatus,  with  its  recognition  of  asson- 
ance as  not  only  lawful  but  often  an  ad- 
ditional grace,  it  had  therefore  no  need  of 
violence  in  disintegration. 

The  great  Nocturne ^  which  must  be  so 
named  because  the  author  wrote  three 
others,  one  at  least  of  which  is  pregnant 
with  splendid  and  troubling  beauty,  was 
published  in  a  provincial  weekly  and  was 
taken  as  a  huge  joke  by  most  people.  It 
was  learned  by  heart  and  quoted  in  com- 
pany for  laughter.  Yet  it  was  really,  as 
rhythm,  in  the  direct  tradition  of  Spanish 
verse,  the  only  novelty  being  that  for  good 
reasons  of  his  own  the  author  counted  as  a 
single  line  two  or  three  short  ones.  The 
repetition  of  Hnes,  which  seemed  mon- 
strous in  its  day,  is  now  a  commonplace, 
an  easy  resource  suggested  by  folk-poetry 
and  dance-song,  as  in  the  compositions  for 
instance  of  Mr.  Vatchell  Lindsay.  The 
general    determination    of    the    verse    is 


Spanish 
verse 


AND     MONOGRAPHS 


The 

direct   » 
tradition 


IV 


26 


Nocturne 


IV 


A     CITIZEN     OF 


toward  a  four-syllable  foot,  disused  indeed 
since  the  Greek  and  Latin,  but  quite  re- 
coverable if  two  trochees  are  run  together 
by  lightening  the  stress  on  every  syllable 
but  the  third.  Now  trochaic  measures, 
like  dactyllic,  are  alien  to  English  speech, 
as  Swinburne  in  a  famous  passage  pointed 
out,  and  the  following  translation  is 
hampered,  in.  addition  to  other  disabilities, 
by  the  stubborn  tendency  of  English  ac- 
centual verse  to  reverse  the  accent  and  im- 
pose anapaestic  rhythms,  or  a  jumble  of 
broken  iambs,  sooner  than  recognize  the 
tramp  of  the  marching  trochees.  The 
writer  despairs  of  conveying  to  any  ex- 
cepting those  who  know  the  poem  already, 
the  fragrant  and  phosphorescent  splendours 
of  the  original. 

On  a  night 
— Night  all  filled  with  murmurings  and 
perfumes,  music,  wings, — 
On  a  night 
When  there  burned  in  nuptial  glooms  and 

damps  the  fireflies^  lamps, 
Slow  beside  me,  hanging  on  me,  silent,  pale, 


BRYN     MAWR    NOTES 


THE     TWILIGHT 


27 


— Say,  did  foretastes,   infinite  in  bitter- 
nesses, 
Shrivel  you  in  the  secret' st  centre  of  your 

fibres? — 
Down  the  blossomy  path  that  led  across  the 

plain, 

You  proceeded: 
White  the  moonlight, 
Through  the  azure  skies,  infinite  and  pro- 
found, scattered  around; 
And  your  shadow 
Fine  and  languid. 
With  my  shadow 
Thrown  together  by  the  moonlight 
On  the  dreary  gravel 
Of  the  path,  confounded, 
Made  but  one. 
Made  but  one. 
Made  but  one  sole  shadow  slowly  drag- 
ging. 
They  were  one  sole  shadow  slowly  drag- 
ging, 
One  sole  shadow  slowly  dragging. 

Now,  at  night 
Alone,  my  spirit 
Brimmed  with  the  infinite  bitterness  and 
agony  of  your  death. 


Two 
shadows 


AND     MONOGRAPHS 


IV 


28 


A     CITIZEN     OF 


Shadows 
of  souls 


IV 


Separate  from  yourself  by  time,   by  the 
tomb  and  distance, 

By  the  infinite  dark 
Where  our  voices  cannot  reach; 

Dumb  and  lone 
By  the  pathway  I  proceeded: 
And  heard  the  dogs  a-barking  at  the  moon- 
shine, 

At  the  pallid  moonshine, 
And  the  croaking 
Of  the  bull-frogs   .    .    . 
/  was  cold  with  all  the  coldness  that  in  your 

bed-chamber 
Froze  your  cheek,  your  blanched  temples 
and  your  hands  beloved. 
In  the  snowy  whiteness 
Of  your  shrouds  and  sheets. 
Graveyard  cold  it  was,  the  ice  of  death, 
The  cold  of  nothingness. 
And  my  shadow 
Thrown  before  me  by  the  moonlight, 
Moved  alone  in  lonely  landscape, 
A  nd  your  shadow  slim  and  agile, 
Fine  and  languid, 
As  in  that  mild  night  of  spring-tide  per- 
ished, 
In   that  night   of   murmurings   and  per- 
fumes, music,  wings, 

BRYN     MAWR    NOTES 


THE     TWILIGHT 


N eared  and  walked  therewith, 
N eared  and  walked  therewith, 
N eared  and  walked  therewith.   Oh,  the  min- 
gled shadows, 
Shadows  of  bodies   that  joined  with  the 

shadows  of  souls, 
Shadows  that  seek  each  other  in  flights  of 
sorrow  and  tears! 

Another  form  of  verse  which  Silva  em- 
ployed in  divers  ways  to  ends  very  diver- 
gent, is  a  nine-syllable  line  made  up  of 
three  feet  of  three  s^ilables  each.  As  used 
hitherto,  it  had  been  either  too  soft  or  too 
hard:  he  taught  it  a  sonorous  force  unex- 
pected and  apparently  miknown  in  Spanish 
before.  In  Futura  it  serves  in  long  para- 
graphs for  a  satiric  subject,  the  dedication 
of  a  statue  to  Sancho  Panza  as  patron  saint ; 
in  Egalite  it  sharpens  quatrains  on  a  theme 
worthy  of  Swift,  to  the  effect  that  the 
porter  on  the  comer  and  the  Emperor  of 
China  are  the  same  sort  of  animal;  and  in 
parts  of  All  Soids^  Day  it  serves  for  the  cry- 
ing and  clangour  of  the  bells.  The  effect 
of  this  verse  is  not  unlike  some  of  our 
English  octosyllables,   but  more  striking, 


29 


AND     MONOGRAPHS 


Another 
verse 


IV 


30 

A     CITIZEN     OF 

English 
parallels 

because  in  Spanish,  with  its  acceptance  of 
a  vowelled  assonance  in  its  multitudinous 
double  rhymes,  the  use  of  a  strong  mfis- 
culine  rhyme  ending  in  a  liquid  gives  ex- 
traordinary finality  and  power,  with  a  sort 
of  clang.      In   Egalite  the  seven  stanzas 
have  a  single  rhyme.      Futura  is  written, 
like   Crashaw's   and   Bishop   King's  octo- 
syllables, in  paragraphs  of  varying  length, 
but  rhymed  at  the  even  lines,  and  these, 
twenty-three  of  them,  on  a  single  vowel, 
the  open  o.     The  effect  is  cumulative  and 
tremendous,  charging  the  absurdity  of  the 
grotesque  theme  with  a  gravity  that  carries 
it  over  into  tragi-comedy.     In  the  Dta  de 
Dtfuntos  the  interlace  of  rhymes  is  most  ex- 
quisite, the  syllabic  harmony  sonorous  and 
magnificent:     nowhere,    unless    from    the 
young  Milton  of  Comiis  and  Lycidas,  could 
English  verse  supply  a  parallel. 

Of  the  poets  called  modernists  he  was 
the  acknowledged  leader,  the  initiator  and 
strongest  force  of  the  movement.     Perhaps 
the  piece  of  his  maturest  work  is  that  called 
Dia  de  Defunlos,  comparable  only  to  an 
aBtar-frontal   of   enamel    and   niello    from 

IV 

B  R  Y  N     M  A  W  R     NOTES 

THE     TWILIGHT 

31 

Limoges,    flawless,    gracious    and    grave - 
coloured.      Of  another,  nearly  double  its 
length,  J/  Pie  de  la  Estatua,  which  is  de- 
voted to  Bolivar  and  inscribed  to  the  city 
of  Caracas,  a  stranger  in  ignorance  cannot 
well  speak,  can  simply  note  as  characteristic 
that  his  most  substantial  work  should  be 
given  to  his  land  and  to  his  dead.      The 
style  here  is  stronger,  directer  and  more 
sustained  than  the  reader  would  be  pre- 
pared for:    the  clear  air,  the  white  light, 
the  unalterable  bronze  against  the  sk}^,  the 
blond  children  on  the  grass,  support  rather 
than  adorn  it;   the  only  metaphor  detach- 
able being  that  comparison  between  the 
great  man  who  "gave  liberty  to  a  continent 
and  to  the  Spanish  dominion  a  grave,"  and 
an  immense  planet: 

As  on  mild  and  lovely  nights  Jupiter, 
crowned  with  lightnings,   makes  pale  in 
empty  space  the  sidereal  light  of  the  stars. 

Critics    who    know    more    about    each 
other's  writings  than  those  of  poets,  have 
suggested  a  comparison  between  Edgar  A. 
Poe's  Bells  and  those  of  the  Dia  de  Di- 

At  the  foot 
of  the 
statue 

AND     MONOGRAPHS 

IV 

\r- 


■/J 


32 


All  Souls' 
Dav 


IV 


A     CITIZEN     OF 


Juntos.  There  is  no  ground  for  such. 
Poe's  is  a  jeu  d' esprit,  Silva's  a  meditation 
on  hfe  and  death.  In  Bogota,  as  in  many 
other  places,  the  bells  on  All  Souls'  Day 
are  rung  incessantly  for  twenty-four  hours. 
No  one  who  has  not  lived  in  a  city  full  of 
the  sound  of  bells,  and  listened  to  their 
voices  and  understood  their  speech,  could 
so  well  interpret  them,  ''the  grieving  bells, 
that  speak  to  the  living- of  the  dead." 

Thick  the  day — the  light  is  old — 
The  fine  rains  fall  and  soak 

With  penetrant  threads  the  city  deserted  and 
cold: 

A  dark  thick  lethal  melancholy  cloak. 

In  the  shadowy  air,  invisible  hands  Pinfold. 

There  is  none  hut  shrinks,  leaving  his  word 
tmspoke, 

Seeing  the  grey  mist  through  the  sombre  air 
unrolled; 

Hearing  still,  far  overhead 
Dark  and  grievous,  uttered 
With  a  pause  and  with  a  stammer. 
Dreary  accents  of  misgiving, — 
All  the  hells  that  cry  and  clamour. 
Grieving  bells  that  tell  the  living 
Of  the  dead. 


B  R  Y  N     M  A  W  R     NOTES 


THE     TWILIGHT 


33 


Something  there  is,  anxious,  dubitable, 
Mingling  its  outcry  in  the  enormous  din, 
Striking  a  discord  through  the  according 

swell 
With  which  the  bronze  bells  toll  and  toll  the 

knell 
For  all  those  that  have  been. 
It  is  the  voice  of  the  bell 
That  strikes  the  hour  of  the  day, 
Equal,  sonorous,  rhythmical, 
Today  as  yesterday; 
And  here  is  a  bell  that  complains, 
Another  is  weeping  there, 
This  with  an  aged  woman's  pains, 
And  that  like  a  child  in  prayer. 

The  bigger  bells  that  ring  a  double  chime 
Sound  with  an  accent  of  mystical  scorn; 
But  the  bell  that  tells  the  time 

Is  laughing,  not  forlorn. 
In  its  dry  timbre  are  subtle  harmonies, 
Its  voice  bespeaks  holidays,  jollities, 
A  ppointments,  pleasures , dancing  and  song, 
The  things  that  we  think  about  all  day  long. 
'Tis  a  mundane  voice  in  a  choir  of  friars, 
And  laughing  the  light  notes  fall. 
Mocking  and  skeptical, 
At  the  bell  that  groans 
At  the  bell  that  moans, 


The  town 
clock 


AND     MONOGRAPHS 


IV 


34 


A     CITIZEN     OF 


And  all  that  the  choirs  of  bells  recall; 
And  with  its  ring-ting-ting 
It  measures  the  sorrows  of  all, 
The  time  when  each  grief  tires 
And  the  end  of  sorrowing. 


The 

church 

bells 


TV 


Therefore  it  laughs  at  the  great  bell  overhead 
That  tolls  and  tolls  its  endless  knell  for 

the  dead; 
Therefore  it  interrupts  the  voices  strong 
With  which  the  christened  metal  grieves  for 

the  dead  so  long. 
Listen  not,  bronzes,  listen  not,  0  bells. 
That  with  deep  voices  clamouring  call  to 

mind, 
Pray  for  the  beings  that  sleep  in  their  shells. 
Away  from  life,  freed  from  desiring. 
Far  from  hard  battles  of  the  human  kind; 
Swing  in  the  air  and  tumble  untiring, 
Listen  not.  bells .... 
Against  the   impossible  what   avails   our 

desiring? 

Up  aloft  rings,  rhythmical  and  sonorous. 

That  voice  of  gold, 

A  nd  tmabashed  by  the  prayer  of  her  sisters 

old 
That  pray  in  chorus, 

BRYN     MAWR     NOTES 


THE     TWILIGHT 


35 


The  bell  of  the  clock 

Rings  and  rings,  rings  on  yet. 

Saying:   "/  set 

With  sonorous  vibration 

The  hour  of  the  forgotten;'' 

That  after  the  shock 

And  the  black  congregation 

Of  relatives  gotten 

Together  and  sighing, 

While  over  the  bier 

With  white  lilies  dying 

The  candles  burn  clear; 

That  after  the  grief 

And  the  sobbing  and  wailing, 

The  utterance  brief 

And  the  tears  unavailing — 

Then  the  moment  it  sets 

When  weeds  are  a  weariness, 

And  thought  turns  again 

From  the  dead,  from  regrets. 

From  languor  and  dreariness, 

After  six  months,  or  ten. 

And  today,  the  Day  of  the  Dead,  as  melan- 
choly awoke. 
Brooding  in  the  grey  mists  that  oppress 
And  the  fine  rains  that  fall  and  soak 
Racking  the  nerves  with  dolour  and  distress, 
Wrapping  the  dark  city  as  in  a  cloak: 


Mourning 


AND     MONOGRAPHS 


IV 


36 


Pleasure 


A     CITIZEN     OF 


The  clock,  that  marked  the  hour  and  the  day 
When  in  each  empty  house  they  laid  away 
Their  mourning  brief  and  came  out  brave 

and  gay: 
The  clock  that  marked  the  hour  of  the  ball 
For  which,  at  a  yearns  end,  a  girl  put  on 
Her  delicate  Jrock-^— forgotten  and  alone 
The   mother  sleeping   by  the  churchyard 

wall; — 
Rings  on,  indiferent  to  the  urgencies 
Of  the  great  bell  that  calls,  calls  all  the 

while; 
The  clock  that  marked  when  came  the  hour 

precise 
That  upon  lips  where  grief  had  set  a  seal, 
Back  as  though  by  enchantment  came  the 

smile, 
Then  in  brief  space  light  laughter,  peal  on 

peal; 
That  marked  the  hour  in  which  a  widower 
Was  mentioning  suicide,  asking  arsenic, 
While  in  the  once-perfumed  bed-chamber 
The  smell  of  phenic  acid  made  one  sick. 
That  marked  the  hour  once  when,  over- 
fraught 
With  ecstacy,  he  wedded;  again,  when  he 
To   the  same  church   another   bride  had 

brought; 


IV 


BRYN     MAWR     NOTES 


THE     TWILIGHT 


The  clock  knows  nothing  of  the  mystery 
Of  all  these  plaints  that  people  the  grey  air, 
And  sees  in  life  nothing  hut  jollity, 
And  goes  on  tnarking  with  indifferent  care, 
The  same  enthusiasm,  the  same  light  graces. 
The  flight  of  time  which  everything  effaces. 
This  is  that  anxious  tone  and  dubitable 
That  floats  in  the  enormous  din. 
This  the  ironic  note  that  throbs  in  the  swell 
With  which  the  bronze  bells  toll  and  toll  the 

knell 
For  all  those  that  have  been. 

'Tis  the  fine  and  subtle  voice 
Vibrating  and  crystalline 
With  an  accent  like  a  boVs 
Indiffereyit  to  good  and  ill, 
That  marks  the  shameful  hour,  still. 
The  fatal  hour,  the  hour  divine. 
Ringing  still  far  overhead. 
Pealing,  rhythmic,  and  sonorous, 
Never  echoing  the  misgiving 
Dark  and  grievous,  uttered 
With  a  pause  and  with  a  stammer 
Of  the  sad  mysterious  chorus, 
Of  the  bells  that  cry  and  clamour — 
Grieving  bells  that  tell  the  living 
Of  the  dead. 


AND     MONOGRAPHS 


37 


Hours 
of  shame, 
of  doom,  or 
of  ecstasy 


IV 


38 

JOSE     A.     SILVA 

Escape 
from  life 

At  thirty  years  old,  when  he  died,  he 
had  already  ^ATitten  what  cannot  be 
matched  upon  his  continent,  nor  indeed 
precisely  in  the  hemisphere,  and  he  was 
only  at  the  beginnings  of  his  art.  His 
tragedy  seems  so  simple,  and  so  unneces- 
sary. 

Poetry  had  the  least  of  him,  but  the  best. 
If  he  had  lived  through  this  ferment  only 
a  year  or  two  more,  till  the  pressure  of 
money  cares  had  relaxed,  till  incessant 
reading  and  study  had  brought  a  kind  of 
satiety,  till  the  sharpness  of  grief  had 
worn  down,  till  the  bitterness  of  disap- 
pointment had  diminished:  if  he  could 
only  for  a  little  while  have  escaped  from 
life,  as  many  a  man  has  done  without  the 
irretrievable  step  through  the  door  of 
death;  if  he  could  only,  in  short,  have  been 
a  poet  by  profession!  Art  for  art's  sake  is 
a  good  creed,  for  more  than  most  things 
art  brings  consolation  and  healing,  art 
occupies  and  fortifies. 

IV 

BRYN     MAWR     NOTES 

Printed  for 
BRYN   MAWR   COLLEGE 

BY  THE 

John  C.  Winston  Co. 
philadelphia,  pa. 


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